There’s nothing new about Google’s ebook service

It seems the whole tech news world are getting exciting about Google’s new ebook store, for the life of me I can’t see why.

The hype makes much of the fact that customers will be able to buy books in ePub format and read them across a range of devices but so what?

Customers here in the UK have been able to buy ebooks in ePub format from one retailer and read them on a reader bought from another for years – Google offers nothing new here.

Even the cloud-based part of the offering isn’t anything new – If I buy a book from Kobo I can read it as a cloud-based version on my iPad, Android phone or laptop as well as downloading an ePub copy to read on my dedicated ebook reader. Thanks to Bluefire and ‘txtr I can buy a book from Waterstones.com, Foyles, Tesco ebook or anyone else and read them on my iPad.

Google’s service isn’t yet available in the UK but frankly when it does arrive it’ll still be nothing more than a ‘me too’ store duplicating services and features which already exist.

Obviously choice is always welcome but the hysterical reaction today’s announcement is receiving is just baffling.

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Comments

What about Google’s web reader? Google have their finger in so many pies that I try to use alternatives where sensible (not Microsoft/Apple/Amazon obviously). So I was looking at Kobo (and had already selected my first book!) but then realized they only have Microsoft and Mac OS X versions of their “Kobo Desktop Application”. So I’d have no way to look at that book on my PC (which runs Linux), right?